Koronos looks up from the lifeless eyes of Skullcrusher, and across the smoke-filled clearing is Vorshan watching with a smirk on his smug, tattooed face, he came to watch his handy work. Skullcrusher hurt him and made him look foolish, so he wanted to watch him die. Shock and surprise quickly replace his smugness as he realizes that the Kazarian he crucified is still very much alive.

  Even though he was heavily sedated when it happened, Koronos remembers the zealot’s tattooed face with the look of pure glee on it as the man eagerly drove stakes through his large blue hands when he was crucified and left to die a slow miserable death. Indeed, he may never forget that face.

  The rest of the group of zealots encircle them as Koronos stands, ready to administer vengeance and revenge, he says to his bodyguards, “keep them busy, I have a score to settle,” then he points his sword at Vorshan and yells, “you, you will feel my wrath before this day is done, I swear upon the memory of my ancestors!” Wishing he had the Sword of the First about right now, he then hurls his spear at him, but Vorshan is quick, so he dodges the attack, and the spear embeds into a tree.

  With smoke, fire and burning carnage all around them, his bodyguards engage the zealots and Koronos barely dodges a throwing dagger that was thrown deftly at his heart, undoubtable laced with the same deadly poison that claimed Skullcrusher’s life.

  Shelove has to retreat from the area because the smoke has become too much for her acute senses, but not before she bites the head clean off a zealot as she runs past her victim upon her exit. She doesn't eat the nasty little head though, humans taste bad. If she was starving, she might consider it eating a human, but only then.

  Eitherway, she hurls the head through the air, and it lands on burning debris as blood spurts out of the torn and ruined neck stub of the zealot, splattering his white hooded tunic in grimson red. Another zealot tries to stab her as she runs past, but she moves lightning quick with her huge black paw and hits him so hard that it rips off his face and lower jaw, he stumbles in shock with blood pouring all over the front of his tunic.

  He stumbles until Corvannafax kicks him in the chest, knocking him into an inferno of debris. This was done as she chopped the arm off another zealot, blood sprays and splatters her but one doesn’t notice it so much on her red skin. Her red skin and blond hair come from Northern Kazarian blood in her, on her father’s side, she’s half Kazarian, half human. When it comes to Kazarian interbreeding with humans, the offspring usually takes on the genetics of one or the other parentage nearly in its entirety, and it’s rare for an offspring to come from such a rare union at all. The average Kazarian woman is as strong as the average human man, and Corvannafax is certainly above average in that department.

  One of the zealots that saw this carnage, turns and runs away in terror but is drilled in the heart through his back by an arrow from Hybornyesis, causing him to flop forward on the damp hard clay ground.

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  Vorshan throws another poison-laced dagger, then another dagger as Koronos dodges and deflects them with his spear, closing the gap between them in a spiraling circular fashion while also dodging burning tree branches and flaming debris that are starting to fall into the area from the burning canopy above. As good as the Kazarian is with a sword, he’s even better with a spear because it’s his original and the first weapon he learned to use. What the Kazarian doesn’t know, or anyone else for that matter, is that the more an Everliving uses a weapon, the more of their spiritual essence and power is imbued upon it. So therefore, his spear is becoming more powerful, bit by bit. This is much of the same process that happened with Otepi’s sword, known as the Sword of the First. These weapons slowly become a focus and amplifier for an Everliving’s powers.

  Finally, Koronos closes the distance and engages with Vorshan in melee combat, although the zealot is lightning fast, no matter how hard he tries he cannot get past the Kazarians defenses. This begins to make his fear rise; he’s never encountered anyone with such perfect defensive maneuvering capabilities. Koronos can’t get a strike on the zealot either, however, slowly the zealot is losing ground and has to back up, getting closer and closer to a burning structure, he can feel the intense heat from it on his back.

  Then Vorshan gets a break, a burning branch lands on Koronos, knocking him down. This is the chance and window the zealot needs, he jumps on the Kazarian with the intention of jamming his sword into that blue-skinned neck, Koronos knocks the sword away with his spear, but at the last moment, grabs the wrist of the zealot that was about to stab into the side of his neck with a poison-laced dagger.

  Voshan is strong and fast, but Koronos is stronger, and he slowly turns the zealot’s dagger toward his own throat. The point starts to poke the zealots' addams apple as he strains to rear his head back in a vain attempt to keep the blade at bay. No matter how he tries to resist the blade from pushing into the soft flesh of his neck, it’s of no avail and the blade slowly pushes in as the zealot’s face turns to shock and he gasps.

  “Now we shall see how much you enjoy your own foul medicine,” Koronos says to the zealot. Then all at once, he jams the blade hilt-deep into Vorshan’s neck, then he stands, taking the zealot with him, lets go of the zealot and kicks him in the chest, knocking him into a large wooden beam of the burning structure. As a coup de gras, he hurls his spear into the zealot’s chest, pinning him to the burning beam. Vorshan screams in agony as the poison from his own dagger spreads through his body as he simultaneously begins to burn alive.

  About then, Corvannafax, Pericles and Hybornyesis finish dispatching the other zealots, they come over to look at the outcome of the fight between her liege and the zealot, they watch until Vorshan falls quiet, and his burning body goes limp, which doesn’t take very long.

  “There’s an old Northern Kazarian proverb; revenge is a dish best served hot,” says Corvannafax somberly, but with a little pain in her words as she thinks of the loss of Skullcrusher and also with a little disdain dripping from her lips for the zealot. Content that honor has been satisfied, she pulls the spear free, letting Vorshan’s burning body drop unceremoniously on the damp clay ground, and hands the spear to Koronos.

  Even though the area is still ablaze and full of smoke, cinder and ash, survivors of the village begin to return and gather around and look for any survivors, friends and loved ones that are alive, wounded or dead, although they are still mostly in shock, grieving and terrified.

  Koronos the Kazarian | Royal Road